Revisiting Your Content Strategy In 2015

Content Strategy
Content Marketing has been a ubiquitous buzzword for marketers for quite some time now. While it is easy to throw it around in business meetings, many marketing teams still struggle with their content management strategy. It’s even more of a challenge for B2B companies.

Here is a handy guide to help assess if your content marketing strategies are still addressing the needs of your company.

According to a study by conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs in 2014, a whopping 93% of B2B companies surveyed in North America engage in content marketing.

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However, when asked how many of them have a documented content strategy, only 44% agreed.

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Without a good strategy, organizations are unable to communicate to their team how content is expected to drive the company towards its marketing goals and it will be difficult to measure success. Strategies formulated in the past must also be periodically reviewed to ensure that it is still relevant to the company objectives.

Do you Have Documentation?

In order to optimize your content marketing strategy, it must be properly documented in an organized manner. This document will help your team align content marketing tactics and social media engagement. A content marketing strategy document will help map out and segment content, identify the target audience, prioritise distribution channels, and drive important metrics.

How detailed this document must be will be dictated by your company size, needs and industry. Don’t have any idea where to begin? Download this Content Strategy Template by Moz. It does take time and effort but in the long run it will be well worth it.

Who is Responsible for Creating and Managing Content?

Are you currently handling content marketing in-house or is it outsourced? One of the major challenges for startups and small growing companies is the manpower involved in maintaining fresh and engaging content. It may make sense to hire an internal person who could ensure quality and timeliness of content, however, a fulltime staff usually commands a salary of $30,000 – $60,000 annually, depending on expertise. On the other hand, hiring an agency gives you the flexibility of only engaging their services on a project basis thereby allowing you to better control your finances.

The key consideration here is Return on Investment or ROI. How much are you able to earn from closing a sale? What is the Lifetime Value of that customer? If your products and services have high dollar value and content marketing is a significant contributor to hastening the sales cycle, then a higher investment on an in-house content management team may be justified.

If you are a startup with limited funds, then outsourcing may be a more economical option. Outsourcing also allows you to leverage a wide range of creative talents who have years of industry expertise. Be mindful in doing your due diligence. Make sure that the agency is reputable and have been in business for a while. Need more tips on outsourcing? Read this helpful article.

What Distribution Channels Should you Priorities?

Choosing the most effective distribution channels for your product or service entail a bit of research about your target audience. Get to know how they prefer to gather and receive information. Which platforms are they most engaged in? Which online communities are they involved with? Talk to your existing customers and find out. While many say content is king, it is often useless if it cannot reach the right target audience.

The internet landscape is changing at a dizzying pace and what is working now may not work a few months from now. Continue to test and experiment to keep your efforts effective and up-to-date.
The only thing worse than not having a digital media presence is stale content or abandoned accounts. Don’t sign up for a new platform that seems new and trendy if you cannot commit to maintaining fresh content. Don’t spread yourself too thin. It makes better sense to concentrate on a few channels that effectively engage your customers rather be present on all and simply broadcast the same mediocre content across platforms.

Blogs

Maintaining a blog has several advantages. You can provide articles that your audience may be interested in that is related to your products and services. It assists in driving your customers through the buying cycle. It can also help with Search Engine Optimization by leveraging on owned organic keywords. Find out more about blogging here.

Email Marketing

Ema3il marketing campaigns keep your brand top of mind especially for those who already explicitly expressed interest in your product. It’s a great way to build relationships by creating customized content, offering exclusive discounts and promoting the appropriate products or services depending on their needs.

Social Media

Social Media is an efficient channel to push content to fans and followers. With tools like Hootsuite, posting on social media can be a no-brainer. But unless you have a sizeable following, don’t expect huge returns from it. Another disadvantage of social media is that it tends to have very short shelf life.

Videos

Next to Google search, Youtube is now the next most popular platform where individuals choose to get information. Admittedly, videos are more expensive to produce, but with emerging new apps, it’s getting easier to create videos even with just a smart phone. Try popular apps like Videopro or Kinomatic.

What is Your Frequency of Engagement?

How often should you publish new content? There is really no right or wrong answer. It depends on your team’s ability to deliver and the industry you are in. Use your competition as a benchmark. While it is ideal to always have fresh content on your site or other distribution channels, you must also strike a good balance between quality and quantity. Use an editorial calendar to help your team manage content and publishing schedules.

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Revisiting Your Content Strategy In 2015